#its not as wretched but i can feel its aura

[witchblade]

the seulo beam hit this album hard

[jade-len]

i think it'd be funny if someone transmigrated as xin mo. the goddamn evil sword. instead of taking it seriously, they just really fucked around with bingge. and, somehow, ended up having the opposite effect of what it's supposedly rumored to do.

picture this: bingge, on the quest for revenge and power, comes across the almighty xin mo. this demonic sword killed everyone that dared to even try wielding it. and, the few who were lucky enough to have it by their side, eventually succumbed to the swords' will.

it is said that the sword is unlike any other, that it etches into your head and eats away your brain, until eventually it consumes you whole. it whispers, speaking in lust, greed, and hatred. it slowly beckons the wielder into giving in to the worst part of themselves and feeds off of pure sin. but to him, it is no matter; luo bingge will surely tame it.

and then he gets to the sword.

demonic qi practically oozes from xin mo. the aura surrounding it makes every part of luo bingge scream, "run; get away, away from that monster." his gut prods at him, begging bingge that this is probably a really bad idea. it's a little terrifying, how even luo bingge, the determined, vengeful demon, is now getting second thoughts about wielding xin mo from just being in its presence alone.

but luo bingge is too, a monster. so he ignores the screams of plea; pushing every thought of doubt in the back of his head, and tightly grips onto the handle. the world around him seems to spin and shake, tumble and crack, from the amount of force bingge needs to use in order to pull the sword of sin out of its place.

when bingge finally has it perfectly fit into the palms of his calloused hands, he hears whispering. he knows that the sword has accepted him as its new host.

the sword's language crawls up to him, as if it were feeling around his body and mind. checking every nook and cranny for it to settle into bingge's form, truly becoming one with the embodiment of sin. the words flow through his brain like a tragically broken guqin, a melody that holds him in a frighteningly familiar trance - all while simultaneously eating away at his brain in the worst ways possible, akin to a child and their favorite snack. it seems to beckon something, but even with luo bingge's impressive hearing, he cannot make out any words from the tone-deaf musical notes xin mo sings.

and then, it is clear. the land around him settles, and everything is still. xin mo itself seems to be.. content. at least, that is what luo bingge believes.

the language of this wretched sword reflects the state around these two monsters.

luo bingge expects it to demand for bloodshed, for the erotic ecstasy of multiple women, for bingge to steal the last of the finest gems of these horrible, vast lands.

instead, he hears this:

"yoooo damn that shit was crazy. did you see what i did there? man, you know, it feels so fucking good to get out of the dirt. hey, do you know if people can like, feed their swords or something? i'm kinda craving something spicy. we never know, in this wack world! wait, don't hold me like that, buddy. it'll make things real awkward."

but luo bingge is determined to get his revenge, so he puts up with the swords' constant rambling about.. whatever the hell it's thinking.

"wait, dude, did you seriously fuck a dying girl? that's wild. yeah, like i know she was dying but it doesn't sound like you wanted it. yo, listen to me, consent is very sexy."

"HAHA hey, dude, sir, man. you wanna play some 'i spy'? we don't have anything else to do. no? too bad, we're playing it. i spy a loser who doesn't wanna play i spy. hint: he's holding me right now."

"okay i know i'm supposed to be this super evil sword and beg to be used - woah that sounded real wrong - but can you at least clean me when you're done killing shit? if you don't, i'm gonna refuse to respond to you and you'll look like a dumbass trying to wield me."

"i can't hear you lalalalalalala you're not being very it girl right now lallalalaalalalla-"

somehow, this is worse than if xin mo was actually eating away at his brain.

weirdly enough though, as luo bingge starts spending more time with this weird ass, seemingly possessed sword, it starts to become more of a.. comfort to have it by his side than pure annoyance. he finds himself responding to it more, like, actually having full on conversations with it. it puts him at ease, wielding xin mo. the hatred doesn't consume him, instead, it seems to soothe the burning rage (and, admittedly, just replace it with small irritation) that holds onto his darkened heart.

xin mo is actually quite kind and caring, for a sword that's supposed represent and be the literal embodiment of sin. sure, it is a hassle to have it cooperate with him sometimes, and it does just ramble on and on about the most random things ever, not giving a single shit if bingge was in the middle of sleeping with maidens and slaying those who get in his way. for the first time, bingge feels so comfortable around something.

it's.. odd. what was supposed to be the turning point in his life, a big step in his plan for revenge, is now something akin to an... acquaintance. not like mobei-jun, or any of the women he's come across, but an actual, dare he say, friend.

sometimes, he finds himself thinking all of this delusional. is this what people were driven mad by? perhaps they simply could not handle dealing with a talking sword. he understands that xin mo was undoubtedly unbearable to be around at the beginning of their alliance, but it has never actually beckoned for blood, power, and sex. if anything, it does the opposite.

maybe he's the delusional one. maybe this is xin mo's way of getting to him.

maybe, xin mo should be considered a thing. the thought feels terribly laughable, as if he were witnessing a person horribly explain themselves. it also makes his teeth grind together in pure agitation.

"hey, you know, you didn't deserve any of the things they did. it wasn't your fault, binghe. the fact that you're half heavenly demon doesn't make you a monster, or any of that wild stuff.. uh, i'm here for you, okay? i know you don't really like talking about all of this or opening up, but i just want you to know that you can.. talk about it. it's not like i can tell anyone else, anyways.

hey- shit i didn't mean to make you cry! wait, wait it's okay to cry! you need to let it out anyways, i promise it doesn't make you weak. there, there. i don't have any hands, so me patting you on the head with my handle will have to do. there, there.. everything will be alright, you'll be okay. i'll be here every step of the way, even if you want to get rid of me."

xin mo, the demonic sword, is more of a person - a good person - than anyone he'd ever come across.

...and then bingge and the xin mo transmigrator become besties or he falls for the damn sword. knowing him, he probably doesn't even know the difference between platonic and romantic attraction anyways. maybe bingge gets a plant body for xin mo using airplane's wack writing. idk i typed all of this down in one sitting.

(plot twist: it's not that the transmigrator xin mo had the opposite effect, it was literally just a placebo effect. luo bingge thought that, and thus it actually did help him lmao)

[finalgirllx]

festivals

short and sweet for week 4 of the jinxed july challenge. thank you to everyone who participated! it has been fun to read a whole lot of summery content! 1k words | fluff, fluff, corny fluff | f! reader

The Hogsmeade summer festival, already a wonder in the wizarding world, becomes even more enchanting as evening falls. The warm night air is filled with the scent of butterbeer and sweets, while charmed string lights cast a magical glow over bustling stalls, games, and laughing crowds. Despite the captivating atmosphere, you barely notice; your attention is fixed on a claw machine you discovered in an arcade tent.

Bested twice already, you fume as you take your third spin at it. It feels a bit embarrassing to be so invested in a simple game, but no one can convince you that this contraption wasn't built just to test your patience.

The machine, clearly past its prime, still holds a certain nostalgic charm. It features color-shifting bulbs and a faded red joystick, which stands as evidence that countless players have already tried their hand at winning one of the elusive toys inside. Its glass case houses an array of plush magical creatures such as puffskeins, nifflers, hippogriffs, and dragons that seem so close yet infuriatingly out of reach. You nearly drop a niffler into the exit chute, but the wretched crane swings it a bit off the mark, leaving you toyless once again.

"Bloody hell," you growl, barely restraining yourself from kicking the machine. None of its charming aura matters at the moment; it is lucky you haven't blasted it to a million pieces. You irritably clasp the joystick for a fourth attempt when suddenly, a large, rugged hand encloses yours to prevent another try.

"Need some help, love?" asks Mattheo Riddle, a classmate you've been flirting with for months. The smirk on his face as he gives you a once-over which would have made your knees buckle if you weren't so miffed. "I can show you how its done."

Too stubborn to let him try at first, you glance at the machine for any excuse. "It's no use, I reckon. I bet it's broken. Maybe someone's even jinxed it, a damn shame."

Of course, he saw through it and chuckled. "Maybe you're just not cut out for claw machines, love. Let me have a go at it."

Every fiber of your competitive spirit urges you to protest, to prove him wrong. But the way his thumb brushes lightly over your wrist and the magnetic pull of his gaze convinces you to relent. With a reluctant sigh, you slide your hand from the joystick and step aside to become an unenthusiastic spectator.

Mattheo takes control of the joystick with confident ease, the claw machine's colorful lights washing over him. He must have felt unusually chipper this evening because he switched up his typical all-black outfit by adding a worn jean jacket. It suits him rather nicely, especially when combined with his dark brown curls, which have grown to an unruly length. Even the cigarettes tucked into his front jacket pocket and the cuts on his knuckles add to his dreamy bad-boy look.

He focuses intently on smoothly maneuvering the claw, his tongue poking out slightly as he becomes lost in concentration. You watch, somewhat impressed but mostly annoyed as Mattheo scoops up a toy and guides it to the chute. He gleams with satisfaction as he snags the puffskein plushie you had been aiming for.

Mattheo shows off the prize triumphantly, his eyes sparkling brighter than the festive lights above as he playfully holds the victory over you. If he weren't boasting at your expense, you would find him cute as hell in this instant. Hell, maybe you still do. That is, until he lifts the toy above his head as soon as you reach for it.

"Is that how little you think of me? Do you really think I'd snatch it?" You ask, feigning innocence over his defensiveness. Sure, you were trying to nab it, but maybe you just want a closer look at the adorable toy.

"Let's not risk tearing apart the precious stuffie," Mattheo teases, waving it even further out of your reach. He extends his other hand in front of you, gently stopping your advances.

"Tell you what," he proposes, a grin spreading across his face, "Come get ice cream with me, and you get to go home with the stuffie."

You pause, tilting your head as you study him quizzically. "Are you seriously leveraging the stuffie to turn this into a date?"

"That I am. If this little puffball is what it takes to finally get you on an actual date with me, then so be it," Mattheo replies earnestly.

Your heart flutters at Mattheo's surprising forwardness. Sure, the flirting isn't new, but this chance to take things a step further with him was a lot to take in. Thankfully, you were more than ready to accept it with one condition.

"Alright, deal. As long as we stop by a few more games so I can kick your arse," you agree to the terms, much to Mattheo's delight.

As you step to his side and loop your arm through his, he hands you the puffskein plushie to hold. For him, having you by his side is the greatest win of the evening, and you are inclined to agree that being with Mattheo (and still getting the stuffie) is a pretty sweet victory.

[midnight-bay-if]

If MC became a mind reader for a day, what kinds of things would they hear the RO think? In general? About MC?

This is an interesting question... I will throw out some general thoughts and see what I can get away with without being spoiler-y, lol.

S: This town is unsettling. Too many people are hiding too much. I had better put on my gloves; those handrails look particularly grimy. The schedule is particularly tight tomorrow. I will have to be pertinacious in getting Taj out of bed. Detective Graves is hiding something. I am certain of it. MC is... interesting. Also, suspicious. But they may very well be the key to closing this case for good.

Rain: This town is dangerous. I feel its aura. It's nice to be back near the water. The humidity reminds me of home. S seems really stressed recently. Perhaps the High Council has been causing them more problems than they let on. I think pastel colours look nice on me, but I've noticed people staring when I walk by. I feel bad for MC. They seem so sad.

Taj: Wonderful; we're stuck in another shithole. Better pull my hood up further; my ears are twitching like crazy. Fuckin' headaches, man. Rain's getting too friendly again. Idiot's going to get themselves hurt one day. S is going to lecture me if I don't say thank you to this person. Bird-brain doesn't know when to quit. Reminds me of S.

N: Well, this should be fun. This place deserves a catalyst for chaos. Since my vengeance was stolen, I should steal something of my own. The whispers are getting louder. I'm close. That little wretch is going to cause problems. Follows them around like a sick puppy. What a nuisance. They are... softer than I thought. I imagined some unruly beast destined for destruction, not some... lost child.

Umbra: They can see me. I shouldn't have let them see me. Too many eyes. I cannot trust any of them. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. The darkness is comforting. I cannot see the pale shape of my face. They were with friends today. That is good.

[trancylovecraft]

Hi!! Idk if you're taking requests but if you are... 👉👈 Hear me out.

Yan! Lucifer and/or Lewin (Blue Exorcist, naturally) headcanons/drabble (whatever you'd like!!) with a s/o who actually?? Loves them back?? Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome, maybe they're just as bad as them... whatever the case S/O doesn't want to leave (even when being "rescued" by others)

(AOEX) YANDERE! LUCIFER/LEWIN LIGHT x WILLING! READER: Headcannons

RECEIPT ✂- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BARISTA'S NOTE: my requests were closed but FUCK am i not a sucker for aoex. like.. 😭 dont abuse that tho, i hyperfixate on aoex a lot but i wont hesitate to delete them >:( but thank u, i love both of these men and am happy to write for them :> GENDER: Femme FANDOM: Blue Exorcist

Thank you for ordering!

Come again soon!

LUCIFER

Lucifer, King of Light, Commander of the Illuminati and the strongest of the Ba'al. Also a Delusional, Possessive, Protective and Manipulative yandere.

Okay, So as a starter lets say that you, A member of The True Cross and teaching assistant at the cram school have been captured by the Illuminati due to Lucifer's growing obsession with you. He's been watching you for months, Only now he has decided to finally take you.

You've been kept in a cell within the Dominus Liminus for months now, Siphoned away from everyone you knew back home and isolated from everyone here. The only people you talk to being a select few, As well as the man himself, Lucifer.

Lucifer loves you, He truly does. And that is such a strange feeling for a being like him, The strongest demon after his father. You're beautiful, Despite how wretched he finds normal humans to be, He also finds you to be an exception.

That's why he needs to keep you locked up. You're pure, Perfect. You're his. He can't let you get dirtied by the likes of other human beings, No, You need to stay by his side where he can keep you safe.

You're meant to be his, You were made for him. Why else would he feel this way for you? You're soulmates, No matter how cliche that sounds that is what he believes to the core.

And you? You're terrified of him, After all he is The King of Light. He's strong, Powerful. He's the decider between whether you live or you die, You're sure any other of your allies would've sobbed at their current situation. But you're not like them.

The difference between you and your other allies?

You love demons.

They're your passion, Your fire. They are the reason you get up in the morning. Everything about them is something you chase after every waking moment. From a coal tar to a seraphim. Oh, How you adore them.

So you're terrified of him, Of Lucifer. But you would be lying if you couldn't say you were drawn to him all the same. His blonde hair, His feline eyes, His slender yet fluffy tail. He exuded an aura you had never felt before. He was poison in the silver vine you craved.

Especially once he declared himself to be your husband, A jitter in your heart at the words. Thumping and grinning wildly once he turned his back. You felt horrid for your own feelings betraying the order, But hell, If you weren't absolutely overjoyed that your new subject of interest liked you just as much as you liked him.

So, Even though you were terrified you had no problem in obeying the rules he set for you. Every time he visited you, You would be too terrified to speak yet crave to say something to him. Every time he'd make you sleep in the same hospital bed as him, Your muscles would be too tense to let you relax.

Lucifer took this as you still being unused to your new surroundings, That you're still just a bit unsettled. Don't worry! He knows you love him (even if that knowledge comes from his delusion, its still true). You just need a bit more affection, So you can become adjusted to him as your husband.

And while this was somewhat true. You still wanted so desperately to just say something to him, Express your interest and genuine desire to know more about him. To love him? That you did, More potently than any other demon before. How fascinating he was, How angelic.

Which was why when one day when you were in your cell, You heard the door open. You got excited, Your heart starting to nervously/excitedly beat in hopes that it was Lucifer coming to visit you once more!

But.. It wasn't him?

Instead it was a woman of shorter stature, A shy yet somehow determined face. Decorated in Illuminati uniform so you figured she was just a new guard on the roster allowed to deliver your next meal.

But she grasps onto your hands, Hurriedly informs you that she's a spy from The True Cross here to get you out. Your eyes widen as you hear this, She doesn't give you any chance to respond as she begins to drag you along, Saying you don't have much time.

You're dragged along by the woman, Conflicted as you make your way through the halls. And she was right, There was barely anyone there..

Shit, You didn't think you'd be rescued this soon or at all! And you feel a bit bad that you didn't want to be rescued either, Why would you want to leave when there was such an interesting demon here that you'd want to study?

The woman stops however, As soon as you enter the next room over you're met with an entire legion there, Already surrounding you.

The woman gasps, Turning to run with you in hand but the exit is quickly blocked.

Lucifer emerges from the crowd in full regalia, Even though he had his mask on you could almost feel the confused yet heartbroken expression on his face as he asks you where you were going with that woman.

You again are hit with that same fear as he asks you again, But you are unable to speak. The woman speaks for you instead, Even though she is also terrified she tells him angrily that his views were wrong, That kidnapping and keeping some poor person was detestable.

Lucifer gets irked by this, Anyone trying to challenge his delusion instantly strikes a cord in him. The woman looks over to you, Eyes begging for you to back her up.

You're still terrified, But you can't stay silent no longer as you speak your mind and announce that this woman dragged you from your cell with the intention of kidnapping you. You spoke of how afraid you were for your life, Practically lying off your tongue.

Lucifer asks her if this is true, Which the woman has no words for as she stares at you in horror.

Her eyes barely have time to widen as the room suddenly flashes, A bright light enveloping the entire room.

The woman falls to the floor dead as Lucifer approaches you, Apologising for what you must have gone through with that woman, He practically steps over the body as some of the guard comes along to drag the scorched body away.

Your fear is still very much there as he cups your cheek with his gloved hand, But you breathe, Trying to calm yourself as you rest your own hand over his and ask him when your marriage was.

Lucifer afterwards would definetly take this as you finally adjusting into your life here, Finally accepting him as your husband (not like you had any objections before).

Giving into him and actually liking him back would make his delusional behaviour so much worse. Like if you thought him thinking you were literally made for him before was bad, You've got another thing coming.

You'll have much more freedom than before, Like you'll be able to walk around wherever you want when you want (only if Homare accompanies you, However). You'll be able to access all the entertainment and leisure available on The Dominus Liminus, Anything unavailable will swiftly be made accessible for you and you only.

Lucifer himself would definetly be more relaxed when it comes to his possessive tendencies, Mostly because he knows he has you. Not like he had any doubt before, But with your reinforcement of your adoration from him, He doesn't feel much worry over it anymore.

Expect a lot more gifts from this man. Clothes, Jewellery, Stuff he think you'd like. Whatever item you may mention in passing to him or Homare, Expect it to be delivered to you by tomorrow morning at the latest.

Lucifer also becomes much more public in his displays of affection. I imagine him to be giving some important speech while holding your hand the entire time. Kisses with him are rather chaste in public, However in private that's a different story..

You sleep in his bed now, No debate. He will not rest until you're laying beside him under the covers, Him holding you close with his tail squeezing your thigh like a ball and chain.

Lucifer loves it when you praise him, He's weak for it. Honestly you could give him a few words of love and he'd be ready to do almost anything for you.

All and all, I'd say its a pretty good deal!

LEWIN

Lewin Light! Arc Knight from the Vatican and a Possessive and Obsessive yandere!

Alright so lets say that you were kidnapped by him, Previously having a relationship that he insists on keeping up now that you're unable to leave his apartment. You're unable to leave cause of the demons he keeps stationed around, That and the fact that he had to sever your Achilles tendons to keep you from running.

You hated him at first, Loathed every time he came back with a rather cheesy "Honey, I'm home!" before sauntering over to the bed you laid in, Roughly grasping you by the cheeks and kissing you on the lips.

You hated him, You really did. You hated his lazy smile, His messy mop of black hair, His passion when he ranted off to you about demons but..

You still loved him, You actually did. Even though he had clipped your wings and kept you inside, Blocked off all sources of communication except from him and severed your tendons.. You still somehow viewed him as your boyfriend.

The one that would buy you fast-food for your late night dates, The one that would joke around with you when you felt bored. You wanted to hate him but you couldn't bring yourself to, He was your boyfriend, You really did love him even though he did all this to you.

It felt like your mind was at war with one and other. One part of you hated his guts and the other part would spill your own for him if needed. It was frustrating and incredibly confusing. You really didn't know what to do.

One day however when Lewin left to go to work as usual, Leaving you alone in the house was when something different happened.

Let's say that he had given you crutches of sorts so you can get around, So you don't need to stay bedridden all the time. Of course it won't help you much because if you try to escape it's going to be one hell of a pain to do so-

But anyways- Let's say you were up, Managing to manoeuvre around all the mess in his apartment to get to his kitchen. You were hungry. Tired of staying dormant on the bed just waiting for Lewin to get home.

But you're startled once you hear someone banging at the door- Not knocking- Banging. Whoever it was their fists were pounding against the wood, Calling out your name.

Your eyes widen. You recognise the voice as an old friend from the Vatican. Why could they be here? At Lewin's apartment? Calling out your name.

The sylphs that were stationed in his apartment to keep watch of you begin to get agitated, Especially once you drop what you're doing and begin to hobble to the door in your crutches. They chitter out some incomprehensible dialogue, Though you knew it was most certainly

You open the door, Lewin not bothering to lock it as he knows the sylphs are guard enough. And as soon as you do you're enveloped in the biggest hug of your life, Squeezing you tight and near knocking you off of your crutches.

They tell you how glad they are to find you alive, That they knew Lewin was up to something all along as they see your ankles desecrated and the crutches supporting your weight.

They tell you how they knew something was off when Lewin said you were injured on a mission, Especially when he said you wanted some time to recover, Alone.

I mean you didn't even text them. They always had a suspicion about Lewin even before this all happened, And to find you like this?

You're absolutely floored with their quick ramblings, Despite being overjoyed to see them once more you have no words to say.

Especially once they try to usher you out of here believing that you are being held captive (..Which you are, But that isn't the point)

You try to tell them that you're okay, That everything is fine but they don't listen. They think you're just trying to keep them safe as they try to tug you out of the apartment.

It is only then when you're halfway out the door does another arm sling around your shoulder.

"Sorry I'm back already, Babe! Left somethin' here.. Didn't know you had any visitors comin' over today, Darlin'?"

It was Lewin, Whose arm. It was obvious he didn't leave something here, Instead the sylphs had been rather quick to tell him about the intruder.

Your friend stops in their tracks, Looking wide eyed at Lewin, Half in fear- The other in anger.

Lewin lays his head on your shoulder in a sort of romantic gesture. The hand squeezing your shoulder tightens, As if it was a warning to stay quiet and go along with it.

Especially once you get a glimpse of his eyes under his hair. An angry, Irritated gleam that gave away the fakeness of his smile.

Your friend tells Lewin that they were just here to meet up with you, To catch up since you havent talked in a while.

Lewin smiles and friendly yet firmly states that you need to rest, Your injuries still haven't healed after all.

Your friend glances towards you, Begging you to say something or give some kind of sign to say that he's taken you captive.

Glancing between the two, You knew you had to make a choice.

You swallowed down your fear, Your mind made up.

You chose then and there that you still love him, That no matter what- He is still your partner. You love him, No matter how much you hate what he did to you.

You tell your friend that everything is fine, That you still need time to rest. You give them the most genuine look you can muster, Trying to convince them everything is fine.

Your friend still doesn't look satisfied, However Lewin pipes up.

He tells your friend that they should go now, They shouldn't be taking time off work hours to go visit friends. He pats them a little too harshly on the shoulder before shooing them off.

After that?

Lewin definetly trusts you more than he ever has, Especially since the sylphs told him that you meant it even before he showed up. He feels his heart squeeze at that.

As soon as your friend left, Lewin definetly made it a point to "show his appreciation." If you get what I mean.

Expect Lewin to be much more lenient. Maybe you can take walks out on your own with the sylphs, Maybe you can order food and maybe- Just maybe- You might get your phone back.

Maybe if you really prove your trustworthiness, He may let your friends visit. Only when he's there though, Of course.

Once your ankles heal then he'd let you return to the vatican as an exorcist. Though expect all your missions to be paired up with him and him alone. He can't let you get hurt now!

Everything goes back to normal, Before he severed your ankles. The only thing changed being that you're now well aware of his obsessive behaviour, Now accepting it with him, Perhaps even feeding into it.

Perhaps you're the kind that likes to make him jealous. If so, Lewin will play along though I warn you not to go to far- Lewin might just do the same.

Expect to wash the blood off him, Lewin seeing this as a romantic scenario. (The only time he will willingly bathe.)

All in all- Lewin loves you, Maybe a little too much- But still loves you all the same.

[puckpocketed]

i'm please to share that caps beat are saying nice things about your boy 💕 they like his skills at informal skate, and they think that carbs and also the power of friendship will work on him. there's other guys that i feel like they've hedged about more, so i think we are all aboard the pld welcome wagon

"your boy" alskjdakljsdklj he is the peoples boy... he is the peoples wretch, even...

i HAVE seen the buzz and i think its so nice <3 i asked a caps fan friend to tell me who i should be following on twt when i first caved and decided i was In <3 look at my beautiful organised tabs!! your reporters live in the obvious news section:

[ID: screenshot of twitter feed tabs. left to right: for you, following, news and beat reporters, stats guys, scouts. /. End ID]

idk about how it is over in caps land but i think most sharks blogs on here nurse a deep affection for our beat reporters, and i've become quite fond of your sammi silber... look at this, everyone has been taken in by pierre-luc dubois and his biggirl swag... his failhorse aura has enchanted them.. they can FIX him it'll be DIFFERENT this time we SWEAR

link, archive link

[webnovel-deluxe]

Isn't Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? Side Story Chapter 4

“Thank you for inviting me to such a nice place, Duke.

“Ummm.”

To put it bluntly, the whole family suddenly gathered because of Isidore, but since he seemed to be happy as if he thought he had me in the family reunion, Duke Seymour gasped inwardly.

“… You must be hungry, come, Duke Visconti.”

“Yes, Duke Seymour.”

Soon, appetizers and rose-colored champagne were placed on a long table, and the meal began in a quiet atmosphere.

“The ingredients are fresh and the seasoning is really good.”

In the stillness, Isidor said, making a hollow in the mouth. Even though he ate happily enough to make the viewer feel good, his table manners were flawless and aristocratic.

'Ooh.'

Enrique looked at Isidore like that with some resentment.

'Why does that person have a good personality with shiny hair and face.'

_“Enrique, you say you’re learning swordship?”_

Heard that I was learning swordsmanship recently, he handed me a treasured sword with magic stones as a New Year's gift today.

_“Nice to meet you again. In the meantime, You got taller."_

'How did you know I grew 1.3 cm taller?'

Most of them don't know.

To be honest… Confucius Visconti seems like a good person. It's not polite to stare like this, but I could tell just by looking at his friendly eyes.

If Isidor were a wretched and stupid person like Filap, he would be able to fight and argue not to get married. I don't know, bad!

“Enrique-kun.”

“Yes?”

Suddenly Isidor calls himself, and Enrique shrugs his shoulders.

“Looking at it earlier, it seemed that he had a talent for swordsmanship.”

“… me?”

“Yes. You have a good skeletal and your posture shows that you have no bad problem at all”

When the magic swordsman, who had done a great job against terrifying demons and monsters, praised my posture, Enrique became a little embarrassed and clenched his toes.

As I was biting my lips because I didn't know what to say, a huge crepe that I had been wanting to eat the whole time appeared. Deborah gave a brief admiration.

“It’s really big.”

The giant crepes that filled the big table boasted a majesty that overwhelms everyone.

“But how do you eat it?”

The cut-and-cooked crepe, which originally featured preserving its full moon-like round shape, did not exist at all.

“Should I call the chef in charge?”

Belek muttered in exasperation, and Isidor stood up.

“I will cut it.”

“you?”

“yes. By practicing how to cut the steak neatly, you will be able to cut it well.”

“Why did you practice like that? Is it part of swordsmanship training?”

“Using an auror allows you to confine the gravy as much as possible, so you can enjoy the original taste of the meat.”

“haha. You're a foodie.”

As if it was no joke that they practiced, the precious ingredients in the crepes were cut neatly without leaking a single one. In addition, there is even a service that puts crepes on the plate in front of each person with a transfer magic.

“It’s a useful skill.”

“I know.”

Enrique's eyes widened in surprise.

“I will enjoy this food. Thanks for the cut.”

“Eat a lot of enrique.”

The child, who had seen the New Year in a fairy tale book where the whole family gathered and shared crepes, looked very satisfied.

The youngest, eating crepe with the above face, was cute and gave Seymour a small smile, meanwhile, Isidor cut the crepe into smaller pieces for Deborah to eat.

But there were people who did not assimilate at all in this friendly atmosphere.

Rosad narrowed her eyes as she looked at the subtle auras that had formed on Isidor's knife.

'That skill that cuts food neatly without scratching the plate. You look useful when you're dating a girl.'

Seeing how delicate and sophisticated the mana control is, it seems like it's not something I've done once or twice.

Athletes How to Recognize Athletes. For some reason it smells like the same player.

'After all, I'll have to shake it off properly.'

Towards the end of dinner, when it was time for bed, Enrique was holding back his yawn and weeping, and Duke Seymour got up to take the youngest to their annex.

“Bring it.”

As soon as the two disappeared, Rosad glanced at the servant, followed by a black keg of a size that would make him intimidating just looking at it.

“Deborah, you go up too. I have a story to tell with the Duke of Visconti, man-to-man.”

"What is he saying now. Are you drunk already?”

Deborah didn't even snort her.

“It’s cheap, isn’t it a husband you’ll look tired of every day if you get married anyway? You won't have many opportunities to get together like this in the future, but today you give up your fiancé."

He went as far as Belek to help.

“brother-in-law, what do you think? Having a drink with us casually.”

“....”

Rosad asks skillfully.

brother-in-law. The word struck Isidor's heart bluntly.

Having a relationship approved by the Seymour twins, who seemed like a strong man.

Deborah swallowed a sigh as she looked into the emerald-colored eyes that fluttered relentlessly.

“Don’t eat too much. Don't bully me, don't stain it badly.”

“Bad water? Are we demons?”

“So, do it in moderation.”

Belek asked again, looking at her sister's back, which was far away after glaring at her with a veiled sharp gaze.

“Sir Isidore, you started dating because you were threatened, right?”

“no. I liked her a lot from the start, and I confessed first.”

“After all, if you want to tell the truth, you have to drink alcohol first.”

The brandy that Rosard brought out was so powerful that Belek, who usually does drink alcohol, was the first to get drunk.

“The Duke of Visconti… ! When tears come out of my brother's eyes, it's not like your eyes are bleeding. Please know that our Seymour is the one to extract without tears of blood.”

He rushed forward and gave Isidor a stern warning, but

“… Still, you are the best among the kids your age. They're all stinky and too sensitive... The more I think about it, the more there is no one like you.”

He was gibberish and gave compliments.

“But Sir Isidor, aren’t you really threatened? I'm not doing this because I'm intimidated, but objectively, you have a much better personality.”

“Not at all. The princess is too much for me.”

“Did Deborah teach you to say that? She's my little sister, but she's very meticulous and scary. She's a saint, huh? Does it make sense!?”

“The princess is sweeter, kinder, more lovable and cute than Saint Naila.”

“ugh, am I drunk and keep listening to nonsense?”

Belek turned into a chicken and shuddered, eventually raising his arms as if surrendering, and squealing back to his place.

'The man who only talked about poor nutrition is gone and the two of us are finally alone.'

Rosad then took a short breath and looked at Isidore, sipping alcohol.

“Sir Isidore, are you really good at drinking like this?”

“It’s not something I really enjoy.”

“Are you good at drinking like that? It’s nice to meet someone who has the right amount of alcohol after a while.”

“I’m a little nervous. It’s nice to have a drink with Rosard too.”

The two continued to give and take again, and as time went on, the hazy energy in Isidore's eyes grew stronger.

Rosa de secretly dumped alcohol with a quick hand gesture, so Isidore was drinking a lot one-sidedly.

'Let's see where we really do not come out. '

Rosard was constantly refilling empty glasses, and his eyes gleamed like a viper.

***

the next morning.

Deborah flicked her tongue in surprise as she looked at Rosard, who had been quenched by the hangover.

Isidor, who had been drinking all night, was sleeping in the guest room without knowing the world, and the eldest son in every corner of the house, who had a stubborn and impeccable appearance, became such a beggar.

“Why did you suddenly catch Isidore and make a masterpiece? After all, what was your plan?”

“Deborah.”

“What?”

“to Isidor, I hope you to do well”

Instead of answering, he made a wacky sound.

“… suddenly?”

“Anyway, good job. There is no one like Duke Visconti in the country. you are very lucky, If you are a saint, Isidor is the son of god.”

“What does that mean?”

“There is such a thing. For a moment, I thought you were a waste, but you two look good together. It's a heavenly match.”

Rosad turned around after saying what he had to say, and sticking out his tongue, remembering the drinking party with Isidor last night.

He caught Isidore, who was completely drunk, and one of his specialties was taking confessions.

“Isidor, honestly, isn’t today an uncomfortable place for you? Father, me, and Belek aren't the kind of people you comfortable with. With Deborah as well, it would have been easier for the previous opponent to deal with... ”

“yes. It’s really not comfortable.”

“Now you’re getting a little more honest.”

“I really want to look good to Deborah's family. So every time we meet, I get nervous, but today, I felt really good that you called me brother-in-law.”

At Isidore's answer, which felt somewhat innocent, Rosard felt an unusually sly smirk.

“Hmm! You can call me big brother.”

“It's good.… Oh, by the way, big brother.”

“Yes.”

“Who is your previous partner?”

“I asked yes only? You must have met someone before.”

“I have never dated anyone before.”

“Nobody?”

“Yes.”

Isidor nodded his head broadly.

“why?”

“It’s mysophobia. Except for Deborah, I can’t touch anyone.”

“Really? Is Deborah the first?”

“yes. The princess felt that I was a genius for the first time, the humor was funny but cute, and …”

What is this child?

There is a saying that drunken seriousness.

He was very good at obtaining a confession by torture, but even if he looked closely, Isidore's tone, eyes, and gestures did not seem to be lying.

Besides, I had to listen all night long to Isidor, who was drunk, about how great my sister was.

'Well, like that... Are there any alcoholic beverages like Palbulbul? '

I had unlocked the heart of the Duke of Visconti with alcohol, but somehow it felt like I had opened something I couldn't see.

He sighed, rubbing his swollen eyes.

'I'm testing someone as pure as the first snow. I feel sorry for nothing.'

The conscience, which was nothing more than a vestigial organ, suddenly stings.

Reflecting on the years of debauchery, Rosad decided to sincerely bless his sister's marriage.

[nathanbatemanfucker]

SPRITE: Savior

summary: the one where nikini knowingly saves marc’s life, and marc unknowingly saves hers.

pairing: marc spector x forest nymph!oc (nikini)

contents: 18+/NSFW/MATURE, mental health struggles, suicidal ideation/contemplation

wc: 2.6k

an: posted in honor of my favorite person to smoosh’s birthday <33! tough stuff here in the beginning so make a wise decision on if you want to/should read! this is so so so self indulgent and i’m not sorry.

series masterlist | moonknight masterlist | requests open

There’s the smell of moss and dirt in the air, a hint of salt from the lake. Marc sits dangerously on a cliff, feet dangling off the edge as he stares down into the water.

Contemplating.

It’s so loud today. That voice that sounds like his mother rings in his ears, bouncing off the walls of his skull. Most days he can endure it. Steven can talk it away but today Marc’s shut him out. It’s been a long time since he’s so forcefully taken control, but he’s tired. Life is not worth living even with the truths he and his therapist rehearse and rehearse. Even with Steven by his side, the loneliness he’d endured for so long cut like a knife by his companionship.

Their mother, her voice, and her actions are just so loud. She’s dead– lost to illness and addiction just a year ago. She’s dead and she was wrong and Marc was just a child. But, the memory of her deafens any rational line of thought.

So he sits here under the shining sun, staring into reflective water that churns. It beckons to him. A siren’s call of no more. Of peace. If he would just push off and slip away this could all be over. There would be nothing more to fight for.

His breath grows shaky, and shallow as he continues to contemplate. He can feel himself succumbing to that wretched fog, the one that wants him dead. His mother is in it, her voice floating through the mist but he can’t stop. He wants this with or without her. There is always torment. He’s almost done this once, he could do it again. He leans forward, peering harder at the water, unknowing of the presence behind him.

She watches him, perched high up in the tree that she calls home, its trunk hollow and spacious. He frequents this stretch of forest often, and every time as if something in him calls to her, she’s here waiting for him.

Sadness radiates off of him. It seeps from his pores and oozes into the soft forest floor beneath him that is now crying for help, begging to be set free from such melancholy. She is about to step off the branch to go to him when a hand reaches out, wrapping around her wrist.

“Don’t, Nikini. It’s not safe, you don’t know him,�� A voice comes from beside her, and she turns to see her friend Lunette. The redhead looks at her with concern, her brow set in firm disapproval.

“He is gentle. And so very sad, the grass can feel it,” Nikini turns back to look at him, seeing him lean forward to look further over the edge. “He wants to die, I must stop him.”

“He is human and not our responsibility. We care for the forest and all it holds. You of all should…know,” The last word comes in a scared whisper when Nikini glowers at her.

Ignoring Lunette’s upsetting words she says, “And right now it holds him.”

“The elders won’t be happy about this. Neither will Kiko.”

“Kiko is pleased with nothing I do, I don’t know why we were paired together.” When Lunette stays quiet, Nikini raises a brow at her, “Will you tell them?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps they will never know,” Nikini suggests.

“Nikini—“

“I will make sure he is safe and then I’ll join you at the waterhole. Tell no one. Promise?”

“Promise,” Lunette sighs reluctantly before materializing in a flurry of leaves.

Despite her eagerness, she is cautious, knowing that Lunette’s warnings could be true. He could be dangerous. He could know of them and want to hurt them. But this sadness he exudes? There’s no way a sadness this deep could be faked.

She closes her eyes and focuses on him, on his aura, and begins to extend her own to him. Marc feels something strange happening to him immediately. The soft but intense smell of jasmine wraps around him, and he leans back, eyes growing heavy. That demeaning voice in his head is smaller, and his brow knits in confusion.

Is Steven fighting? Is he trying to break into the headspace to stop him?

He shakes his head, taking in several deep breaths as if it will clear his head, unknowing that her power isn’t something he can will away. His eyes return to the deep water, to the task at hand and she frowns.

His will must be stronger than she’d hoped it be. This will take more than simple control, it will take companionship and convincing. She steps off of the branch and into the air, floating down to the ground.

Her steps behind her are undetectable, so delicate in the earth beneath her feet.

“Don’t,” She calls out to him.

Marc flinches, letting out a soft shout as he turns around and stands. His stance is defensive, fists raised until his eyes land on her. A woman? His head tilts as he squints at her, fists falling to his sides.

He’s not sure that she is a woman, but something more. He can’t dismiss it, what with Khonshu and his biddings as his avatar. There’s more to this world than he thought, and the sight of her reinforces that for him.

Her hair is short, a stark ashy blonde in comparison to brown skin, and adorned with a crown made of ferns. Her skin is freckled and looks painfully soft under the streams of sunlight— she is wrapped in a white dress that is more akin to a sheet, though it is opaque. She smiles at him, and his eyes zero in on her fangs; they make his heart race. She makes his heart race. She is exquisite. Incomparable.

What is she? Who is she? Something otherworldly for sure.

“Who are you?”

Her throat goes dry when their gazes meet. His eyes are guarded but not unkind. She has seen him time and time again but never this close. She blinks slowly as she tries to take in every detail about him; the furrow of his brow, the slope of his nose, the softness of his lips. There’s the worn sadness on his face— despite it, she finds him captivating.

She clears her throat, chin tilting up, “Nikini.”

“What are you?” He asks, voice full of wonder. His eyes can’t leave her, getting lost in every detail of her.

There are rules. She’s not supposed to discuss anything about herself with humans. She wasn’t supposed to tell him her name. Her gaze falters.

“I— I am…Nikini,” She repeats again cautiously.

His mouth raises in one corner at her answer. He nods, taking a step towards and something warm spreads through his chest when she doesn’t step away. She isn’t afraid of him, isn’t put off by his large stature or furrowed brow despite her small stature.

“I’m Marc. I didn’t mean to disturb you,” He gestures around as if there’s something that had he’d interrupted. But, there’s just them. Them and the forest.

“You come here often.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“Protecting you,” She amends. “You should stay away from the edge. It is dangerous.”

He snorts a humorless laugh, “That’s the point.”

“The grass, it says you are very sad.”

“The grass?” Marc asks, confused. He feels like he’s going insane…it doesn’t feel so bad with her standing here in front of him.

She points to where he sat, “The grass, it absorbs the aura around it. Yours is…I’m sorry. For whatever happened, I am sorry.”

Marc swallows, looking down at the grass, clearing his throat, “It’s fine. I have it under control.”

She blinks at him, confused by his words. It’s clear he doesn’t have it under control. “But you were going to…I stopped you. The feeling you felt, it was me.”

“Why? Why would you stop me if you know how much I wanted to—,” He cuts himself off, letting out a sigh of frustration. How he feels so entitled to speak to her this way he doesn’t understand, shame bubbles in his belly. “Why?”

She opens her mouth to answer his question and promptly closes it because she is not sure. She doesn’t understand why she’s so drawn to him. In all her years, she's been curious about humans and the way that they live. But she’s never been fascinated by one. So protective. Everything she’s done since seeing him for the first time has been instinct— as if she had to. That’s what she’ll say.

“Because I had to.”

She had to? Maybe it was part of her life, to save pathetic humans like him in her forest. She looks as if she could be the queen of it.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” She says with a smile.” “Come back here. Anytime that you feel this way, come back to me. Yes?”

Seeing her again? This feels like a dream, his head filled with sweet fog. Or maybe he’s already dead. Maybe he’d slipped off the cliff and this was his afterlife. Maybe she’s stationed in the field of reeds— but would an unworthy man like him have made it to a place like that? To a…being like her?

“Alright,” He says mildly.

“Now that I have appeared to you, the forest will try to confuse you to protect me and the others. But this will help.”

The others? Marc thinks to himself. There are more of her?

She holds out her hand, and right before his eye, a piece of gold appears in the cup of her palm. Engraved into it a flower he’s unfamiliar with. He looks up at her in disbelief and then back at the charm. Yes, she is certainly not human but he can’t bring himself to be afraid.

“What is it?” He looks at it skeptically.

She takes his hand and places the charm into it, curling his fingers around it, “A talisman. It will guide you to me. That is my symbol, Jasminum, the flower. It’s what you could smell.”

Marc bites back the sigh that raises in his throat when she touches him. Her skin is like cool, soothing water against his warmth. And so incredibly soft.

“Guide me to you?”

“Just listen to it. It will work. I must go, they will come looking for me. But, will you come back?”

“I’ll come back,” He reassures her before he can think better of it. He shouldn’t come back here, he doesn’t know what she is or what she’ll do to him. But he wants to. He yearns to.

The smile on her face makes Marc’s heart flutter. And then she’s gone, disappearing in a gust of white flowers. From the scent of them, he can tell it’s jasmine.

—

Nikini appears just on the edge of the waterhole. She’s late, the elders have already started their talk about the upcoming summer solstice. She slips behind trees and through branches to where Lunette is with her mate— Riffie— and Kiko. She lets out a silent sigh as she comes to stand beside her. Kiko, taller than both Lunette and Riffie looks over them at her with a disapproving look.

All nymphs are assigned a mate, usually a satyr that belongs to a different faction with different responsibilities. There is no love, no practical compatibility, just an elder who claims that each pair is meant to be together. Nikini couldn’t be more sure that this elder has lost their touch or perhaps they never quite had it. Kiko is in the faction of human control and extermination. She and Kiko…well it will be difficult to lead their lives together with such differences— especially now that she has had contact with Marc.

“You’re late,” Kiko whispers, his hooves shifting in the mud.

“There was an injured fawn, I couldn’t just leave her,” She lies easily, looking away from him and to the elders as she tries to listen.

Lunette and Riffie share a look but say nothing, taking a step inward toward each other. They’ve been privy to many of Nikini and Kiko’s disagreements and prepare for the blowout to come after the elders are finished.

It’s the same talk they give every single year. Except this time, pollution has risen to an all-time high, and with the summer solstice, humans will be their most active in these woods.

“Nature is shifting. The warmth and abundance of summer will be upon us soon and so will droves of them who claim to love the earth and destroy it with their best interests. More than ever we must be dedicated to nourishing and protecting our land.”

“Hear that? I was being dedicated,” She quips to Kiko.

Nymphs, fairies, and satyrs alike scatter once the elders are done speaking, off to do their part for the forest and it’s longevity. Nikini decides to walk home, to see if she can’t run into Marc before he is gone but Kiko has other plans.He calls for her, and when she doesn’t stop for him, he follows after her.

He bends so that his mouth is near her ear, able to whisper, “You smell of human.”

“I know not what you speak of,” She says cooly.

“Do not lie, Nikini. For once, please do not lie to me,” He begs, and though his face is set into a frown she can see how tender his eyes are when she looks over at him.

Sometimes, she wonders if she’s too hard on him. There are times when she finds herself considering giving him a real chance at courting her. She knows that her heart could never truly belong to him. Especially not now.

“The fawn, she was a little girl. She was lost, I simply guided her back to her parents,” She lies again.

“Her scent is intense for a little girl,” Kiko suggests.

“Perhaps she has a strong spirit.”

“You know that it’s against the rules to do something like that.”

“She was a child, Kiko.”

“It does not matter. You heard the speech of the elders, and the humans have become more and more careless. I have seen it with my own eyes.”

Yes, sometimes she sees herself giving him a chance, and then words like those leave his mouth.

She glares up at him, pointing her dainty finger into his chest, “We are eventually supposed to raise children together and you do not even hold empathy for them.”

“They are not our children, they’re the children of a species who seek to destroy themselves.”

“And who are we if we don’t try to save younglings regardless of their species?

“Your head is in the clouds, Nikini. One day you will learn that given the chance to save us, they would pillage and use us for all we have. Every single one of them.”

Marc’s existence, his wonder and sadness sit on the tip of her tongue. If Kiko could just see him. Understand him. If they all could, maybe they wouldn’t be so afraid.

“Do not follow me any longer.”

“Please, Nikini, I’m just trying to open your eyes.”

“My eyes are open and sadly they are faced with the sight of you. Let me amend my statement, do not follow me, and do not talk to me.”

Kiko tries to reach for her, to attempt his best try at an apology but it is too late. His hand is met with white flowers, his nose with her telltale scent. He sighs and heads back towards his faction, heart sinking into his stomach.

She didn’t need this to go so poorly to know that Kiko can never know about Marc. But now more than ever she is concerned if he ever does return. Though it causes her heartache and goes against her want to see him again, that night she lays in a soft pile of moss and prays to the gods that he never returns.

moonknight taglist: @angelfxllcm, @honeybrowne, @ninebluehearts, @rmoonstoner, @hotchs-bitch, @later-gators12, @foreverinwanderlustt-blog, @aleeb, @whatthefishh, @eyelessfaces, @marc-spectorr, @missdictatorme, @toracainz, @mccn-bcys, @minigirl87, @campingwiththecharmings, @juneknight, @pastelbabygirl19 (and @inklore bc this a woods au)

[greylocke]

The Beast Within

I hate this time of year.

Ringing in the new year pings the back of my tongue with a familiar sour taste. The infamous ball drop a near exact image of my heart sinking. The countdown, although merely a succession of numbers leading into a new arbitrary section of time, mimicking the rhythm of your final breaths. During a time where others are celebrating the future and moving forward, I am forced to relive my past — more specifically, the worst day of my life.

My father, my person, my best friend, and my hero suddenly and unexpectedly seized to death on January 2nd at age 57. I was 27. I celebrated the onset of 2021, only to be met with utter destruction. The death of my father collapsed my ethos and left the ruins for me to pick through. I have come to find peace in the unknown. I honor the fragility of life, remaining genuine and strong when the tides of the moon sway me. I embrace the flow chaos with open arms, for I know I cannot bend its will. I am a force to be reckoned with.

It’s almost 2025 and I want to stay home. I want to dissociate on my couch with the comfort of my dog keeping me grounded. But, I make plans on a whim with some cute guy with a mustache to keep me accountable and get me out for the night. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider cancelling, but I’m trying to be better about that. So for the third year in a row, I scolded myself until I put on some glitter, white platform boots, and a forced smile. Hopefully at some point tonight it won’t be so forced.

I start off strong in the record store, rambling about cassette tapes that most find irrelevant. We seamlessly land at my favorite diner in town where I unabashedly destroy a veggie burger and fries, smearing barbecue sauce all over my face every bite. I had forgotten to eat all day. I lock my keys in my car looking for change and have to Uber to my apartment and back for my spare key. I should be embarrassed, but for some reason I’m not.

Shrugging off the chaos I seem to attract, we laugh it off and enjoy each other’s company. Our lukewarm drinks waiting with their babysitters, we walk into the 40 Watt with unforced smiles. Talking to him is a comfortable wave meeting the shore — swift yet gentle. Our words effortlessly intertwine in a way only we can comprehend. He brought me the gift of laughter that rang through my chest, healing a small part of my woes each time. He proudly announces his intense, pure interest in me. Not just me…my mind, my past, my soul, my life. I feel safe. A rare occurrence, but one that I crave.

With reluctance, I reveal the tattered yet unrelenting beast I hold captive within my gut, shackled to my rib cage. Accompanied by a soundtrack of a classic Athens band, I hesitantly allow him to get a proper look at her. He observes the creature from afar as she wretches and bellows between my bones, begging to be released. Others flee in disgust, abhorred with her feral form. He holds the privilege carefully, like cupping water in his hands. He respects the cautious distance I strictly mandate. He watches the beast pace, intrigued by her elegant movement and ferocious aura. The creature exudes intimidation, but he is entranced by her powerful warmth. They lock eyes for a fleeting moment and he sees the beauty in her terrifying power. Only I selfishly embrace the beast, tracing the scars where hair cannot regrow. As I gaze into her piercing stare I feel a fiery, yet calm, energy encompass my being.

Perhaps I am robbing myself of something by keeping the beast hidden. Perhaps I am robbing others of experiencing the beauty of a dynamic and fierce soul. I can’t let anyone scar her again. I must keep her safe, and he made me feel safe.

To be treated so gently by a stranger, a man nonetheless, rattled me to my core. The countdown ends. We exchange a glance, clink our beers, and sheepishly smile at the ground. I had to kiss him. I felt safe…and I haven’t felt that since 2020.

I will never be able to thank him enough for the evening we shared. He showed me that I can be vulnerable again. His gentle hand on my shoulder, the playful nudge of his elbow, and the way I kept catching him looking at me will be forever tucked away in a secret pocket of my heart — right next to the beast.

[fiannalover]

Pokémon Fic Recs

Because I read a lot of fics and am always on the prowl, so I felt like sharing a non exhaustive rec list under read more. Feel free to add recs on reblog if you want!

Savoir-Faire: To Know and To Do -  This is the one. If there is a fic I beg everyone to read it's this. multi-chapter but not that long PLEASE do it. MC of an alternate XY was cursed by rampaging Legendaries with immortality. 10 years later, jaded Marguerite Linden du Bois is finishing her paper on Pokémon World Sociology, taking a newbie trainer for the road. Read for Humanities Things, Ghost-Types, the apathetic weight of immortality, worldbuilding, the workings of Pokémon League, Research Assistant Darkray, Royalty and more. I am begging you to read it.

Ashes of the Past - Peggy Sue fic where Cyrus destroyed the world and Arceus decided the best way to deal with that was send Ash back to the start of his journey (after some Aura training). Saphroneth writes fights *amazingly*, specially around Orange Island, where he took a break and came back with a glow-up. Fic is dead now, but consider reading, if nothing else, the Suicune or the Tobias Fight.

A professor and student + The 48 - I have this unproved feeling there is an overkill amount of “Ash is traumatized after Kalos" but this is The one about it. Kukui takes care of Ash in Alola and helping the boy set some boundaries and stuff. This and the wider “The 48” series are amazing Ash, and you can find great longer fics and one-shots alike here. Adults but not grown-ups (Alola Supporting Cast one-shots) and Left Behind (Ash and a Future Ash end up swapping time places during XY while brock is visiting) are real stand-outs. 

You Thought - Aliens invaded and took over the Pokémon World, but actual Pokémons still give them trouble. The premise may seem weird, but it is a means for amazing descriptions of how even the common Meowth could be terrifying and disruptive for an outside-context watcher.

A home can be found - Lillie during and after OG SM, finding a new family with Kukui, Bunet and her friends.

What the Sun Leaves Behind - Hau is inheriting Hala’s spot as kahuna after the latter died, and Gladion shows up to give him a pep talk when Hau runs off into the woods from nerves. It is tagged as Hau/Gladion but it is really a platonic deal.

A Little Bit of Maschiff - Juliana decides that getting a Maschiff of her own is the perfect thing for her friendship with Arven. She gets more than she bargained for, with Arven helping her tame the wretched beast.

The Clues - isshushipping. 5+1 One-Shot Fic of N being In Denial about Team Plasma during BW.

colder in the summertime - One-shot. Morty is cursed. Read for pretty boys in cold fever, nosebleeds, exhaustion, the whole shish-kebab.

Read It Now.

Collateral - Faller!Touya, and the International Police helping him, while his friends try to find him. Sad. Great.

Pinky Promise - Gloria/Hop One-Shot. Hop fighting for dear life to get Gloria a Christmas Gift.

Massive “The Kids Are Doing Fine” energy. Adorable.

The Earth, the Sky and the Sea - An enigmatic narrator retells and expands the Hoenn Weather Trio story. Excellent atmosphere. 

HIS2435: Sinnohan Myths and Legends - Cynthia giving a College-level History Class. Chaos Mayhem Etc. Lots of author touches and headcanons and references but can be comfily (and hilariously) read on its own.

Masahop/Train shipping section (I may have a problem)

Do you believe in love at first sight? - Hop getting a crush on Gloria, slowly realizing over the years he’s actually in Love with Victor. Vic is the MC/Champion. The fic has a charmingly unique Victor (chronically ill/frail immune system - Hop gets to care for his health a Lot it’s cute), and feels very Earnestly Adorable in Hop’s bisexual crisis. writer is requesting feedback so please give them some love!

Kiss Your Neo Champion - Hop got his Neo Champion clothes. He has a boyfriend. What is not clicking

Sunshine Riptide - Instead of Words, I’ll put these excerpts here:

[greenxprof]

ANOTHER flashback. :)

( very very late memory archive )

Green vs. Spectrier.

Pale Moon hoovered over Kanto, silently gazing at the earth below who had been nothing but plagued by chaos day after day. She observed, quiet, as the redhaired left his house with determination and anger overflowing.

Spectrier has been making his life much harder than it needed to be. Pounding at his normalcy like insistent hammer, deforming his routine, transforming it around to its pleasure, and his despair.

Crushing his easy peaceful days under ghostly hooves. Brewing anger into him, molding hatred he though he'd left behind long ago.

But this had to stop. If Spectrier wanted him so bad, he might as well face it properly instead of simply looking away from the problem. The Pokémon who almost turned him into a monster, who broke Spiritomb's keystone and put his loved ones in danger...

Green left his house, battle spirit uncontainable. The scar in his aura, his forever connection with Spectrier burnt and pointed the way. Both ends of this link walked calmly, strolling under the moonlight to meet each other in high ground, atop Mt. Moon. Where all of it started.

Across the large field of stone and dust, Green saw his opponent. Ghostly purple shimmer, scaring away life and peace with its aura, Spectrier stood many meters away.

"Hey." Green called, voice echoing. "You've been really pissing me off, you know. Doing whatever you please. Hurting whoever you want."

The horse lowered its head. Its bad eyesight didn't stop it from knowing exactly what they were meant to do.

Battle.

To decide whether Green is worthy enough to ride it, or if Green is weak enough to be swallowed whole once again.

"I won't simply let you get away with this."

He muttered, whipping out his pokéballs. His Arcanine, Blaze, came out with a loud roar, sharing Green's anger and fire.

But for such opponent, Green must battle seriously. Evoke all his might, all his skill and all his talent, as losing would never be an option. He mounted on arcanine's back, hands firmly gripping red fur.

The next second, Blaze kicked the ground and advanced forward like a Talonflame locking onto its prey. The wind exploded on his ears, speed increasing fast, Spectrier getting closer.

A battle in movement.

The dog and the horse ran across the mountaintop faster than normal eye could see. Spheres made of shadow clashed against bolts made of fire, sparkling the night with several colors of combat.

"Fire Blast!"

Green kept shouting decisive commands, every one of which perfectly followed through by his trusted companion. The two, in complete sync, barely had to think before acting. Oh, Spectrier can feel its soul itching.

But as Green predicted, battling a wild pokémon while riding his own wasn't the most effective way of dealing damage. Blaze had to be extra careful, because being hit meant risking his trainer getting injured. If it were just him, he knows a hit or two would never stop him. However...

Green clicked his tongue. This strategy is taking much longer than he wanted it too. Soon, Blaze will tire of carrying him, and their speed won't match Spectrier's anymore. A change of plans is a must.

"Blaze!" he tapped his arcanine's neck. "Extreme Speed."

A normal type attack would never hurt their opponent. But Blaze knows better than doubt his trainer. The dog roared, evoking his power to push his legs to the maximum, speed increasing violently as he left smoke behind his paws.

Blaze hit Spectrier's torso before it could do anything to avoid them. As expected, ghostly body not affected by his furry one. Once again back at his normal speed, the horse surpassed him.

But then he saw it. Green clinging to Spectrier's neck as his body were thrown around.

He might never had mounted a wild horse before, but he knew very well what to expect. Savage motion, gut-wretching force throwing him back and forth, left and right, as Spectrier kicked its legs in a fit. Struggling to have the man off its back.

Taming a wild horse all by himself wasn't on his life's dream list, and yet there he was, embracing its neck, pulling its hair and biting with force lest he accidently bit his tongue off.

"B... Bl. . Blaze...!" Green jumped up and down, forcing his arm to point at their east... At a cliff.

The Arcanine understood it immediately. Logically speaking, Spectrier would be forced to stop if walled between Blaze and a cliff, and his trainer would be able to leave and find safety again.

Circling around, the dog spit fire at Spectrier's feet, skillfully herding the ghost to where it needed to go.

Green felt his mount steady, slowly shifting from kicking to galloping straight. Much less painful, this opportunity allowed him to breath and recollect his thoughts, back on track with his plan of action.

And his choices proved to be way too reckless, more than he planned them to be. Spectrier gave up on shaking him off its back, instead deciding to expel him in a much more practical manner.

It ran fast, exerting its legs to gain speed, heading straight on to the imminent fall. It meant to suddenly brake, letting physics get rid of its uninvited rider.

And Green knew it would work. Blaze kept getting smaller and smaller as the horse reached unreal speeds, ones the furry legs couldn't keep up with. He hadn't nothing to hold onto.

He closed his eyes with a sigh. It's not like him to lose him cool during a battle. It's not like him to give up before the very, very end. Green's always stubborn spirit never allowed him to.

And this would not be the first time.

Arcanine yelped in panic, watching as his Trainer approached the imminent fall. Seconds later, as predicted, Spectrier curved its body, straightened legs sliding across rock and dust, braking itself from the monstrous speed it just reached.

It felt excruciating, as if all his organs were smashed against his ribs, as if his brain were blasted against his skull. The adrenaline could never be enough to prevent his heart from igniting in fear.

Spectrier slid through the ground like gliding atop ice, ghostly neigh furthering Green's discomfort. Luck struck the horse, and its hooves fully stopped just centimeters away from the precipice.

Green wasn't blessed as well, however. His body jolted forward, speed violently hurling him forward like an arrow.

He saw the world turn upside down. He saw Spectrier's face, its flowy hair. His arcanine, smallest bit in the distance, panic drowning his yellow eyes.

For the few seconds he fell, Green smirked. That's all he needed.

Spectrier fell for his trap.

With a whip of his arm, Green casted a duskball right at his opponent's snout. It flew fast, strong, decided, full of Green's determination.

Spectrier got swallowed by the ball, falling gracefully. It shook once. Twice, thrice.

Then, it stopped.

Blaze came right after, ignoring the horse and its predicament, barking in despair at his trainer. He prostrated himself by the cliff's brim, searching for Green and praying for his safety.

But he saw nothing. Not a shadow, nor blood nor clothes nor nothing. Only a speckle flying upwards, emitting a loud chirp he's heard before many times.

A pidgeot flew to the sky, large wings casting a shadow over the dog. She landed right by him.

"Blaze!" And, for his peace of him, Green clung to the bird safely.

Both his pokémon watched in silence as he picked up the duskball. He rolled it in his hand with a hum.

"Sorry for worrying you two. See, Spectrier was exhausted from trying to kick me off its back. That's why it sped up despite the risk of not braking in time and falling as well." He shook his head. "Desperate situations call for desperate measures."

His companions nothing said, because nothing they could.

Spectrier would not bother them anymore.

[discordapples]

PT. 8 Scripted Obession

Word count: 1.5k (6 mins read)

Characters: Ominis Gaunt, Sebastian Sallow, Livia Novik.

Summary

Ominis Gaunt is, in his turn, roped into Livia Novik's plan to find the Promissum Mortis, and he's about to regret agreeing to enact a scandalous scene to let her into headmaster Black's office.

Read the eighth chapter below.

Ominis | Hogwarts, Late August, 1893.

The sound of Livia’s heels eddies all around; a steady padam that tunnels right through Ominis’ eardrums. Her walk is spirited. Her presence definite, like a scud of coal-gray clouds heralding an impending storm.

Ominis barely talked to her. But people leave a footprint in their wake; an imperceptible aura decanting around them.

The demure and withdrawn give off a radiating emptiness; a bereft creature, desperate to be cherished. 

The gregarious and effusive blister their heat outwards like a vexed beast; just as feverish for the cage of affection.

Ominis has learned that everyone is an empty well. That all ache to be sated by another. That acceptance is the only currency that has any genuine value—albeit unconsciously. 

Livia Novik wants something, too. She longs to furnish her soul with the very thing she lacks. She has to. 

Yet Ominis cannot perceive her yearning under all of this noise. 

Padam padam.

She stalks into the jaws of her brazen plan with not a sheen of fear on her forehead.

What is she made of? 

Ominis cannot help but wonder as he tails her through the corridors, his wand pulsing in his pocket, alerting him to the treacherous corners and the crooked stones rearing underfoot.

Livia smells sugary, but her words are anything but. She wears silk, but her wit bristles with edges. She walks fast, but her gestures are measured—calculated. 

Something isn’t right with her. 

Turning west, she comes to a brisk halt. Ominis’ wand surges with the sudden inertia and he stalls by her side. 

“Here is perfect,” she says. 

The syllables are breathy. 

Is she… thrilled?

“Are you sure?” He asks her. 

A thirsty inhale. A faltering exhale. She is… eager? “Yes. Now it would be best if someone could see us.”

She is a deluge of signals now. The perfume of vanilla and black currant sours with her rising pulse. The breath she pushes between her lips is serrated. The whale-boning of her corset cracks under the pressure of her lungs heaving with oxygen. 

She is apprehensive… 

The question comes to him, not because he is interested in the answer, but rather to probe her reaction. When he speaks, his voice isn’t wavering. “You want someone to see us do what, exactly?”

“We need to make it believable. We need witnesses.” Ominis can hear her teeth skating on her bottom lip. “Press me against the wall and tear the buttons from my shirt.”

He wants to tell her this will scarcely make a difference in the narrative she’ll spin for Professor Weasley, but he is curious to test how similar she is to Sebastian. How thirsty for theatrics and attention.

Gaining an inch on her, Ominis almost wishes her to falter.

She doesn’t. 

So his knuckles curl around her waist, and he drives her back against the stone wall, wringing an astounded gasp from her throat. 

It’s his heart’s turn to pump his bloodstream full of elation. As his thumb mountains the slope of her neck, his mind howls with corybantic thoughts. 

How easy it would be to plunge his finger to the knuckle into the soft spot in her throat and listen to the cartilage pop. 

How fast he could feel the warmth dredge from her body if he only squeezed long enough. 

How many screams he could coax from her depths if he played her scenario with too much zealotry…

A stroke of red pulses at the back of his eyelids and the wretched thing that lives beneath his skin races back to its cage to lick its wounds. 

Crucio.

Learn your place, his mother spits, or I’ll nail the curse into your spine until it’s too broken for you to stand up to your own mother.

Stomach flooding with nausea, Ominis swiftly retracts his fingers from Livia’s skin. “I… I believe you can ruin your shirt yourself. I’ll make it believable when we have an audience.”

Her surprise is palpable. Her response, cautious. “Sure.”

The next sound that slashes through Ominis’ permanent darkness is this of fabric tensing and a hail of buttons snowing onto the floor. 

Without a warning, her fingers close around his right wrist and force his palm to connect with… wool.

Underneath the fabric, Ominis feels the curved shape of her thigh. His fingers notch mechanically into the crux of her knee and she lifts her leg, pulling him closer. 

His other palm splays onto the stone to break his fall. 

The air festers with tension, and his intrusive thoughts come blistering back into his skull until—

She screams. 

A mortiferous wailing that strikes Ominis right where he stands. 

He almost lets her go, his fingers detangling from behind her knee, until he feels Livia’s hand furl around his palm to keep him rooted to her. 

It takes only seconds for the wooden stairs above them to creak with the weight of many legs. 

The Ravenclaw tower, really?

“Mister Gaunt! What do you think you’re doing? Leave her alone!” 

Professor Weasley’s voice lashes through the air, and for an instant Ominis thinks Merlin himself plodded down his celestial throne to smite him. 

Livia pushes him away, allowing him a brief window of time to slide into the clothes of his imposed role.

He fake trips, bobbing his head without rhyme or reason. “Is it here I lost my flagon?”

A pack of girls giggle from above the railing. 

As he simulates a drunken hiccup, he wonders if Livia struggles to keep her own mask on. 

“What is this about?” Professor Weasley urges them.

What comes next confirms the Ravenclaw girl is as gifted in stagecraft as Sebastian. “He—” The world dies in her gullet. She sobs helplessly. Long enough to shove a spoonful of unease down his esophagus. “He slid his hand up my skirt…”

It’s in a thunder of laughs and a score of whistles that Ominis Gaunt is yanked away from the bawdy crowd by Professor Weasley and roughly shepherded towards headmaster Phineas Black’s office.

* * *

When the headmaster is done with Ominis, he has missed both herbology and divination. 

He also missed his breakfast and the ever-shrinking window of sleep his constant nightmares afford him every night.

Parched and surly, he makes his way—early—to the dungeons, then drags himself to potions class.

He gropes for the first empty seat, then slumps against the table, his cheek stamped against the coarse wood. 

If Ominis managed to keep the headmaster’s guillotine away from the tender flesh of his neck, he doesn’t know if he’ll survive the sentencing of Hogwarts’ social tribunal after his escapade with Livia Novik.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) for him, Sebastian finds him before the inquisition does. 

“Got my hands on Dovetail’s book,” Sebastian boasts, sitting next to him. “Twenty points into the difficulty meter for crossing paths with Peeves and an extra ten for being in Reyes’ vicinity when she started her period this morning.”

His skull throbbing with a sharp hurt, Ominis aches to grind his friend’s face into a powder with the pestle, but instead he just surrenders to his exhaustion and says nothing. 

Sebastian isn’t deterred by his murky silence. “Did Livia find her candle?” Ominis shrugs placidly at the question, the discomforting feeling of the Ravenclaw’s skin still ghosting over his fingertips and cleaving through the haze in his mind. 

“Fuck’s sake,” Sebastian mutters. “You’re sour when you haven’t slept…”

Another bout of footsteps resounds outside, and as the belly of the classroom fills with students, so does the air with the thorough spreading of Ominis’ late mishap. 

Ominis sits through the hum of rumors, too tired to rear his head and show his fangs, until Livia’s presence pulsates next to him. 

“Did you find it?” Sebastian asks her, eager as he is to drink her ellipses and choke on her commas.

“Yes,” she says, her voice lowering. “All thanks to Ominis’ outstanding performance.”

“You owe me a full night of sleep and one breakfast,” he retorts, more curtly than he intends to.

If she has noticed his dim mood, her tongue knifes him regardless with one of her salient comebacks. “And you owe me a shirt, or at least some thread to sew my buttons back into place…”

“And while we’re compiling our debts…” Sebastian chimes in, his words bleeding with his despicable sarcasm. “You two owe me a story…”

Ominis’ spine unfurls. There is a need creeping in his mind, one that longs to hear the gears in Livia’s head steam and startle for the right words. 

Will she tell Sebastian the truth or will she wriggle out of the snarl?

The tale itself is of no significance to Ominis. But Sebastian’s bait, and how she will slip it from around her neck might tell Ominis more than he needs to know to figure her out.

To understand what she wants and how low she is ready to stoop to see her desires realized... 

Livia’s voice has stitched all of her aplomb back into place. It is miles from the quavering inflection Ominis experienced last night when he shrugged into the same feverish inch of air as her. “I suppose you could say that unlike what the situation appeared to be on the outside, I was very much the assailant. Then I disgorged a screech so loud, I suppose I’m the reason Ominis sports a splintering headache this morning.” He feels her lean close, the sheaf of her scents clawing into his nostrils. “Will you ever forgive me?”

Despite himself, the Ravenclaw’s badinage worms its way into the chinks in his armor.

He will blame it on the sleep deprivation, but for now, he allows himself an evanescent smile that cleaves through his anemic ire like a knife through butter.

He has already forgiven her.

[revvnant]

-> initial response @slaughterlocked

it's mental health meltdown michael monday.

Isn’t this what you wanted? No, he doesn’t say, what I wanted was for you to take Elizabeth to school and pick her up, maybe help her with her homework, take an interest in her games so I can get some damn sleep or work on my own shit. 

Such an answer would have been unacceptable, so instead he’s here, receiving ‘support’ that feels more like an attack. That’s just your paranoia, a mental voice supplies immediately, sounding nearly indistinguishable from the flesh-and-blood William beside him. He marvels at that in silence, the way parents automate their, well, parenting. He’s so sure of what his father will say next all the time that he hardly needs him! 

Yes, hardly needs him, he thinks, stealing another sideways glance at. Not that William would catch him at it, this peeking; he’s far too fixated on his own appearance. Michael can see when the switch flips, when the dour, anxious asshole that is Dad turns into Mister Afton, owner of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. A genius. A pillar of their community ( though that participation, too, is automated ). The pizza pope. The first honourable franchiser. The self-obsessed cockhead motherfucker. But he’s getting angry. He turns his eyes back to the field.

The egg and spoon race. He can just imagine bragging to his classmates: my Dad won the egg and spoon race when he was about my age! They’d eviscerate him, use his entrails as streamers and sink his severed head from the three point line. Complete social obliteration. The destruction of what little reputation he still had – because, in addition to thebrotherthing ( a thought he thinks as quickly as possible to avoid it catching, growing, spiraling ), they’ve all turned fifteen, which is a positively wretched age to be. There are new rules, and they all only seem to know a handful of them, and tribal communication has broken down to a point where they can’t stitch it all together. What’s become clear to Michael is that simply shoving someone’s head in the toilet is not enough to remain at the top of the ladder anymore. It keeps him afloat, of course, when administered righteously, but there had been a good few months at the beginning of the year when he’d teetered on the edge of becoming the brainless bully stereotype, and had had to do a quick and uncomfortable pirouette to save his skin. Luckily, most of the girls and some of the boys had decided that making out was the most interesting thing a person could do behind the school nowadays, and Michael immediately set about honing this talent, carving out a new niche. It’s a work-in-progress, but he feels he’s on a safe trajectory out of the meathead zone into the infinitely more fertile ‘bad boy’ region. As good a place as any to settle.

Track is part of that; not all of it, but part. The real reason… he wouldn’t share on pain of death. Its aura lingers beside him, but it’s not William ( an idea he relishes: it’s not all you, it’s not just about you, and he imagines hurtling that thought viciously to his father’s mind and shredding his egotistical brain into a fine purple pulp, and feels a thrill in his diaphragm ). His tongue presses against his lower lip, peeking out just slightly past his teeth and tasting the fresh-cut grass on the air. It grounds him.

“--it’s traditional,” he says dryly, glad that he can rely on himself to deliver ennui-on-demand ( a word he quite likes, but hasn’t gotten around to learning to spell yet ). “Just not you-traditional. But I bet you’ll find it lovely-jovely,” he adds, drawing out the vowels, “so go take a seat.” And don’t talk to any of the other parents, but he doesn’t need to say that, either, because there’s just no way in Hell. Not even to spite him. Yay.

As soon as William’s out of his peripheral vision, he moves, squeaking his way through the dew to the starting line. The coach gives him a cursory nod, and the corners of Michael’s lips twitch up in return. Coach is one of the best things about track; not because he’s the godsent father figure coaches always seemed to be in the sports movies, but because he’s the farthest thing from. When he’d walked into the room set aside for track, and not the one for boxing where he probably belonged, there had been a moment of mutual sizing-up, followed by understanding. Michael was not there to excel. This was not his ticket out, the thing that would send him first to a good college on an athlete’s scholarship, and then on to stardom, though he had the physical ability. Maybe something in his eyes had screamed, I’m not here to be moulded, I’m not here to excel, because Coach never bothered him at all. He never mentioned college ( maybe he’d checked Michael’s grades and seen that he was not making it out of high school ), he never pushed him to try harder; he checked him off when he showed up at three in the afternoon after dropping his sister home and biking back, and didn’t comment on Mike’s too-consistent second- and third-placements. When they’d filled out the little forms that got them their district funding every year, under ‘why did you choose this elective’, he’d written, I like running. And that was it for them. He liked running.

Except that isn’t it. As he takes up his position, ready for the whistle, he can feel goosebumps beginning to spread across his arms, and his throat tightening despite his best attempts to breathe evenly. Fuck, no. His heart is already racing, his mind is three yards ahead of him, with no regard for the rules. That’s fucking foul, he thinks, but it doesn’t bring it back. The track is already warping, and he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing upright and then compressing wetly under a hot exhale of breath. The bear’s shadow engulfs his own, and the smell of blood overpowers the mowed lawn in an instant. Every muscle snaps taut. He can feel William’s eyes on him from the bleachers, and for an absurd moment, his medication fails him and he really, truly believes that his father can see what he sees. That he can see the bear.

The coach blows. Michael lunges, taking off as his white-lined lane peels away from the others, twisting up into the dark. His feet slam down, but he’s in a runner’s position, spine straight, chest thrown forward, arms and legs pumping like pistons as he flies down the field. Burning rubber. He’s not supposed to be like this. This is the sort of running he does when he can’t sleep and it’s one in the morning and the dump is an easy two miles, there and back in an hour. Top speed is reserved for the bike. Track is about control, but he is not in control. He’s going too fast. He’s eating up the straightaway and leaning on the curve the way he never does, because he’s only trying to place well enough, and this-- this isn’t that. This isn’t a workout, this isn’t cleansing the way a track meet should be. He’s gunning for it. His pores are wide open. His mind is on fire and his eyes are watering as the wind hits them hard. He’s lit at both ends and running out of match. The first hurdle looms in his vision, and he has a split second to decide what to do. Don’t stop is his first hysterical instinct, but he’s still lucid enough to disregard it. As visceral satisfying as it would be to slam through the barrier, to splinter it apart with his hips, that isn’t what would happen. At best, he’d go ass-over-teakettle and give the other runners time to catch up, and have to wobble back to the middle of the herd. At worst, he’d break his legs. And he could let it happen! He could throw now, save this before it got entirely out of hand. He could bask in the familiar lukewarm glow of his father’s disappointment, and William would probably be happier with the status quo maintained. A successful father-son outing.

That backfires. In spite of it all, in spite of it all, he still isn’t conditioned to give up. It isn’t and will never be in his nature. Electric bitterness overcomes fear just for a moment, and that’s enough to lift his legs straight out in front of him over the hurdle. It’s the wrong jump, meant more for urban movement than track, and he corrects himself on the next, and the one after that, coasting over the bars smooth as butter. Then he’s on the last curve, the line is ahead, and he’s shocked that he’s not tearing the polyurethane with how fast he’s moving. Goal: run a mile. Run five miles. Run faster. Not to escape Hurricane. This isn’t a sports movie. There is no time he could make that would magic away his failing grades and mental handicaps. At age fifteen ( a positively wretched age to be ) his brain is on crutches; much as he wants to live alone, he knows that, unless he turns some miraculous corner within the next few years, makes out with reality passionately enough that it agrees to pal around with him again, he’s stuck in that house with William until– until whenever. His father dies. He gets bored with him and throws him out. Michael goes to jail. William smothers him with a pillow like he should have done from the start. Whatever, whatever, whenever. There’s a finish line that will be drawn at some point in the future, and at no point along the way will Michael Afton graduate, go to college, get a real job, move away. That’s why second and third place are so essential. That’s why continuing to sprint is disastrous. But he’s on autopilot, floating somewhere just above and behind his body, and he’s doing this, he guesses helplessly. It’s too late now.

He blows past the finish line a full thirty seconds ahead of the next person. Even then, he only stops when the coach blows the whistle again, stumbling to a halt and catching himself with his hands when his feet lag behind in confusion and trip over themselves. If it smarts, he doesn’t feel it. He’s back in his body, back in his head, and it’s midnight inside. The bell is fucking tolling, and it’s tolling for him. This is not a victory. That didn’t feel like winning. That felt like a meltdown. The usual frontrunner crosses the line. That felt like a tantrum. Still on his hands and knees, panting like a bellows, he raises his eyes from beneath his sweat-soaked fringe and finds William’s smudged shape in the crowd. He isn’t close enough to see the expression on his father’s face, but it doesn’t matter. Regret is already swallowing him whole. He pins his lower lip with his teeth to keep it from trembling, shakes his head, and halfheartedly slams his fist into the ground.

Fuck.

[nikedrive]

Chapter 9: Broken Table

[From Nike Drive, an ongoing crossover fanfiction.]

previous chapter

In you, in me, the gray detritus withers on the fingers. It lies, every effervescence lies-- what is on your lips is not what started in your spine.

“Seriously?” Abarai’s voice broke the silence of the team meeting room. “We’re supposed to do something with that?”

“He’s just toying with us.” Axel leaned his head back against the locked door behind him. He was still not smiling. Kalypso was realizing he must not wear that expression as constantly as she’d assumed. “Hoping we start psycho-analyzing each other, give him more ammo.”

“Ammo for what?” Duibhne had taken a step closer to the screen, his eyes scanning over the faces and their mysterious classifications, but now he shot a wary look toward Axel. Wary? Maybe not. Disapproving, more like. “This is volleyball, not some kind of psych experiment.”

“Hah.” Okay, now the smile was back, in its twisted, darkened variant. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“Even if it is just mind games,” Cu Chulainn interjected, stretching on his stool, “I don’t see the harm in chatting it up. Gotta admit, he’s got me curious.”

“Such a well-trained pup.” That purr from the opposite side of the room was layered in poison.

Kalypso’s chemistry tripped a wire in her brain she could not resist, and which, once her conscious mind caught up with her action, she actually approved of--as all the attention in the room swung toward Yang, she rolled her weight forward onto the heels, then the balls of her feet, and rose out of her tense little knot on the floor. The better to fight, or flee, or if nothing else, at least be on her feet for when whatever dread moment was coming came.

“Still,” continued Yang, with a sort of disinterested lazy drawl that was completely opposite his apparently eternal state of murderous Flare, “wisdom lies in choosing one’s battles. I’m sure the Lamb can attest to that.”

“Don’t speak for me.” Kalypso spat the words out through nausea and migraine aura.

“Then speak for yourself, Kalypso Ixora,” Yang said smoothly. “Tell me what is meant by ‘Rubicon’ as your ideal, and I’ll tell you where you are weakest.”

“Very generous.” She didn’t like that, not any of this, not every Dominion’s eyes on her, nor this demand that she explain Xigbar’s stupid epithet, nor this oh-so-kind offer to tell her which of her fifty glaring problems Xigbar had decided was the most egregious. “Maybe someone else will take you up on it.”

Yang’s golden-coin eyes sank into her like knives. It took everything in her not to take a step backward and press herself against the wall. Never show a predator you’re afraid. You might not be able to do a damn thing to protect yourself, but you certainly weren’t obligated to make it any more fun for them.

“Good answer.” Redford straightened from his lean on the table. “Back off, Yang. If we’re doing this, it won’t be by dissecting Ixora.”

It was a very stupid hypocrisy. A conflict of two wretched impulses: a Lamb’s sickly, worshipful gratitude and Kalypso’s absolute disgust at that selfsame feeling. Because Redford had stepped up like the Dominion he was and defended her, she did not want to be defended, even with Yang’s hungry intentions spreading like toxins through her blood and lighting up his eyes.

“Listen,” she said, regretting this already.

The amber trap of Redford was, in her mind’s eye, seeping out along the floor with his Flare, but she tried for once not to lean on the crutch of her coping mechanism. Instead, swallowing against her seizing throat, she met his gaze and tried to see him.

“Nobody’s looking forward to this, so dissect me if you want. I don’t care. Twenty minutes. Just can you try not to--look at me, or be so… I, I have,” Kalypso was fumbling, grasping now at humiliating straws and hoping they were at least coherent, “quite the chemical headache, and may throw up, possibly. If you’d rather I didn’t, then--”

“The hell?” said Jaegerjaquez, from her left.

“You wanna sit back down, then,” said Cu Chulainn. He’d pivoted completely on his stool to look at her--clearly either completely disinterested in or unable to follow her request, which was a disappointment, honestly, she’d been so very polite about it--and then actually started to stand up, at her, horror of horrors. “Head between knees, eh?”

“No, thank you.” Because moving would maybe mean her knees would remember how to work, and because who knows, there might be some sharp edge of that table she could use to distract herself, Kalypso stalked forward, past Cu Chulainn, and planted her hands firmly on the edges of the hologram table. She leaned on them, closed her eyes for a moment, braced herself. “Okay. I dunno about Rubi--”

“No idea what ‘narrative’ is supposed to mean,” said Axel loudly from his place by the door. “I just told them in that interview that I thought I’d do good if the folks either side of the net went into it like it was personal.”

All attention slid to Axel, startled by his interjection. Kalypso experienced an instantaneous easing in her thudding veins, in her throbbing head. The gyroscopic aura crowding into her vision slowed their sickening shimmer. Relief slackened the tension tearing at her shoulders.

Duibhne said, “Personal? You’d play better if everyone, what, held grudges, is that it?” There was a sort of rush behind the question that didn’t harbor any hostility. Kalypso licked dry lips, realizing he was jumping after Axel’s change of focus with both feet. She tried not to feel too grateful. It was hard.

“Nah, like--if this guy wanted specifically to block that guy, if a couple were trying to make some play work and were getting there, that kinda thing.”

“That’s just volleyball,” said Abarai.

“Sure, except it’s personal.”

“You like the story.” God, Kalypso hated it when one of them snuck up behind her--but even as her heart rammed hard against her ribs and her stomach lurched threateningly, Cu Chulainn wasn’t behind her anymore. He’d moved from his stool to stand opposite Axel, to lean against the massive wall monitor, in fact. It made him hard to see with that electronic light pouring past him and throwing his face into shadow. Not his eyes, though. Not bloody drill-bits, maybe--red-hot ones, with their own light source. “A hero story, a tragedy, a revenge story, what have you.”

A…story?

Despite her misgivings and her headache, Kalypso glanced toward Axel now, with the rest of them. His arms were crossed, his face set and stripped of that smile. When she looked hard at him, through the veneer of the hearthfire disaster her mind had boxed him into, she saw the two little tattoos on his cheeks and the way his still-vicious Flare cracked along its edges, curling back in toward him.

He thought of playing, his best playing, like a story. Like…being part of a story? Was he the story, or was it the whole court, the whole thing, the ball and its accidents, the lines and their ruthless arbitration, every failure, every lucky turn?

He liked it personal. Kalypso could, bitterly, grudgingly, understand that. Hadn’t it been different than anything else, playing with--

“You give us your schtick, then,” said Axel, before that white-hot thought could coalesce in her. He was looking narrowly at Cu Chulainn, expectation written in the arch of his brow. 

“Ehhh,” said the libero, his shoulders lifting in a slow, lazy shrug. Kalypso found her gaze pulled to him now, as if caught by chemical gravity. Those red eyes swept upward, away from her and all the rest of them, as though he were reflecting on a memory. “I figure I’m one of those answers that didn’t really give ‘em much. ‘Stimulus’--c’mon. We’re all organisms, the hell else we gonna care about?”

“Rank evasion,” said Yang silkily.

“I don’t hear you volunteering,” Abarai growled at the distant redhead.

“I told ‘em straight that I figure I play my game the same no matter the sitch.” Cu Chulainn spoke across Abarai’s glare, ignoring Yang’s accusation. “Lessee--I think I said something about how sure, it’d be nice to find folks who matched energy, but ehh, as long as they gave me something to work with, I was gonna be fine.”

“...And Xigbar took that and said ‘Stimulus,’ huh?” Redford sounded like he was feeling dubious on some aspect of Cu Chulainn’s answer, whether it was the libero’s truthfulness or Xigbar’s faculty for assessment.

“He sure did. Beats me how, or why.”

“Somebody explain what the fuck ‘rubicon’ means,” interjected Jaegerjaquez, gravelly with poorly-leashed irritation.

Unhappy though she was to have focus return in any way to her, Kalypso was nonetheless a bit more stable now that some of the Flares had subsided and the Dominions had something for their attention to chew on that wasn’t entirely her. “It’s a river,” she said, dropping her eyes back to the blank surface of the table. “I think he’s just being a melodramatic prick.”

There was a pause, and also a hefty spike in the timbre of her headache. No Flare boiled over her, but her blood seethed hot beneath her skin, and the flood of unfair and distasteful dopamine made her bite her cheek again. She focused on her breathing, trying to force it to stay slow and even.

“That sentence will comfort me in dark times,” said Axel, after a moment. She didn’t really want to look at him, but it sure sounded like a smile, of one kind or another, was back on his face. “Cheers, Kalypso.”

“I’m guessing it’s from the expression, about crossing the Rubicon,” said Duibhne, clearly speaking with care. “Meaning something like, ‘going past the point of no return.’ Ah--why?”

Kalypso spread her fingers wider on the tabletop, stretching them until it hurt. “Dunno. I told him my ideal playing condition was a 6-2 rotation.”

“Eh?” She wasn’t quite sure who made that noise, but it came from several directions.

“Ah.” That one she could identify--that was Yang.

“Vicious,” said Cu Chulainn, and she could hear his toothy grin.

“So, three attackers, all rotations.” Redford was hard for her to block out, because of his sheer proximity. She felt the way he shifted to lean forward, toward her, a little, like they were both koi stirring up their shared, too-small pond and making each of their movements the other’s problem.

“Five,” she corrected. “Six potential I guess, but five always swinging. That’s my ideal condition.”

“Five? Always? The libero shouldn’t be setting that of--”

“No libero.”

A silence, and with it, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose, and her headache pulsed across her scalp, pressing nauseating fingers to the base of her skull. Someone--or several someones--were taking issue. Great.

“Huh,” offered Cu Chulainn, into the gathering threat of Dominion thunder.

“Good luck with that,” Axel said.

Kalypso raised a hand damp with cold sweat to toss him a blind, sarcastic salute, still leaning on the table.

“Won’t be happening here.” Duibhne sounded apologetic about it, which made her rather wish to throttle him.

A faint pattering ran through the table, up through her hands; Redford was drumming his fingers. “Hmm. If we did run a libero for the middles, we’d have some options. That’s still three in front--”

“Pulling fangs already, Redford?” Absurd, how Yang could sharpen a purr to cut through any moment like butter. “She’s only been here a day.”

That low-burning Flare, that soft carpet of heat, that chemical threat that Redford had been keeping banked and ready, bloomed upward. It took Kalypso’s oxygen and her vision as well. Amber swept up her, choking and hot as tar. “And yet you still need a muzzle on you, don’t you?”

A tiniest of clicks, and the sound of a motor--oh, maybe there was a merciful god--and the door to the team meeting room opened. Either Xigbar was taking distant pity on her, or twenty minutes were up.

Kalypso was lurching through that door with the rush of that Flare roaring at her back, and if anyone tried to stop her, she did not hear them, or feel them, or care.

next chapter

[brownhairedbookworm]

"Mhm. I'll wait until you're on the other side before I turn this thing on and I'll be watching from this side to help with what I can, okay?" She comes over, minding the lines as she reaches over for a big hug.

"I'm gonna be busy taking notes of the whole process, but I'll come bail you out if it goes south, okay?" Squeeeeeeeeze.

"From here out, it's all you, but know you aren't truly alone. You never will be, ever again~." Said just like Sayori would say, if she wasn't locked upstairs with her father right now.

"You've got this, Monika. I believe in you. Become what you were truly meant to be~." A forehead kiss before she finally gives Monika the space and holds onto the book.

"If you can convince your chosen demon to, feel free to use the other version of this room and my desk to talk with them at a more manageable size. They should find it to their liking, probably~." A final thumbs up as she makes her last offer.

"I love you, baby~!"

"...Thank you, mamá." Monika can't help but shed a couple of tears at the affection and encouragement. She takes a deep breath steeling herself for the coming trouble. "Okay... How do I do this...?" She looks down at the circle, noting that it looks like an eye shaped from a pair of moons.

"Spirit energy..." She aims a palm down at the circle, trying to focus. It's different from Ether, that's for sure... Monika closes her eyes and listens to the rhythms of her body, muscles and heart and bone, and... Something more.

Her hand glows with a violet flame that drips onto the circle and sets it ablaze. It settles into a simple glow and rises up around Monika. She disappears from the view of the mortal plane, now standing in a much more silent version of Anya's lair.

She opens her eyes and looks around. Anya's nearly invisible, but her divine energy gives her outline a shimmering glow that Monika can't miss. Monika steps out of the circle, shuddering at the sudden sheer loneliness she feels. Seeing Anya is not feeling her presence, it seems.

Monika makes her way to the Book of Infernal Demons, looking at the now-shining incantation to summon Alraune.

"FABOAN HARG D LI TOLTORG, NIIS PAMBT!"

She shudders at the power in the words, turning toward a red circle on the floor that has suddenly appeared. A woman in red, flowerish armor appears, smirking at Monika.

She speaks only in demon-tongue, but Monika can understand every word. "Hmm... It's been some years since an Umbra Witch has summoned me. And as a first, no less... Hahahaha, you seek your first contract with me, then? You do seem to have quite the delicious soul...Powerful, but fearful. That will serve you well, gathering the blood of angels for me." Alraune steps forth to Monika, holding her clawed hand to Monika's chest.

"In binding your soul to me, you will feel the first death, as a human. Try not to scream, too loudly." Her nails pierce Monika's chest, stabbing right into her heart.

The chill of death instantly takes Monika, as Alraune licks the blood off of her claws. As the world fades, her panicked soul flares up and a wretched shriek of anguish and desperation echoes from her throat, culminating in a green rush of energy up from her body.

Everything coalesces into a star-shaped emerald, which then begins to tick as a silver pocket-watch forms around it. A chain sprouts from it, and the watch falls into Monika's open hand.

Immediately, Monika shines with a purple aura, and time seems to reverse for her, bringing her back to life and completing their contract. Alraune glows red and disappears from the room, and a red mark glows upon Monika's back. A masked rose and its thorns.

The sign quickly fades and Monika falls to her knees, panting, as pink bracelets form on her wrists. The contract is completed, with the linking of blood, soul, and demon. And now Monika has awakened as an Umbra Witch. Instincts she didn't know she had being to bubble beneath her conscious mind.

She coughs and gets to her feet, drawing a magic circle in the air and stepping back into the normal layer of humanity. She collapses into her chair, sweating. "I... I think I did it..."

[xamaxenta]

ANON im dying thank you im gonna think about this au for the rest of this week im desperate to draw smth for it

Holy crap u came in with a goddamn monster im not complaining tho here king u dropped this 🫴🏽👑

I have no extra additions bc its perfect, altho you and @adragonqueen may have inspired me to write this au in full as a sexy bloody oneshot, im gonna makw my cumback on AO3 once and forall just u wait n see

But i have thots like ACE BEING A HUMAN MAN WHO WAS NEVER EVER TREATED LIKE ONE!!!!! Screaming??? The implications of this tall beastlike man ???? Hunting monsters? Hes very good at it, hes hired for this purpose but people fear him almost as much as the monsters he kills, hes solitary because of this, because hes got this inhuman inhumane aura about him that would quash a lesser man, never took a partner because theyd end up being irreparably hurt

The cut to Sabo not being human so he can take it is sublimeeee super sexy of them to have a flat out brawl, like its the dirtiest fighting between two creatures wearing human skins, Sabo getting desperate and sloppy because hes so fucking hungry and Ace is driving him absolutely insane and Ace meanwhile should kill Sabo it wouldn’t be hard to get the upper hand but like you said hes unchained it feels so good its euphoric to go all out against a creature that wants nothing more than his blood

Got me hootin n hollering over Ace pinning Sabo and BITING HIM BACK!!!! Like youre not the only one with a jaw, Sabo going stir crazy and their bloodied kiss the one that sent Sabo mad in the first place aaufhfheh you compiled all the vicious chaotic want i originally wanted to write abt but didnt bc i had to sleep like a old decrepit person 😭😭😭

Sabos like burning with lust hunger the promise of satiation imminent when Ace mounts him and just takes him on the floor from behind and jts the most wretched animalistic blind lust fueled fucking ever mwah i love u sm anon lmao

and then u come with the Sabo rides him bc its not enoufh hes had a taste and he wants so much more, takes and takes and takes and Ace is right there giving all hes got which is so confusing for sabos beastie brain but hes gettinf fed so whatevee licks up all the blood he can feast upon between their fight turn fucking can u hear

The sound of a jail cell shattering as i hulk out over Sabo LICKING THE BLOOD OFF THE NASTY FLOOR

Deceased…

And then rhe warm somftnesss of them Sabo realising that this prey this victim isnt like the others, that for all his denseness could see himself trying to keep him around… luckily for him Ace feels the same way ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Whoa anon who sent me that super insane long follow up to the sabo totally wants to eat Ace and thinks Ace is dense af for letting him so close but Ace kisses him yeah you understand meee

Can i post what u sent in screencaps just so i can put it all under readmore bc even tho im going bonkers crazy its a monster